“Oh, how she loved to be home!” – that’s me in the window ;)
For this spread I used acrylic paints and collage paper, but for the architectural elements I created hand carved stamps. I also filled in with some of my Fanfare stamps.
I’m so in love with our new home that it definitely inspired this page. So I put my Millie stamp in the window because every home needs some homebodies :)
Here are some of the supplies I used:
Today we have a post from Jennifer Gallagher from my Creative Squad. She is sharing some really nifty paper doll inspired cards that use my new Millie and Actually I Can stamps. This month’s theme is: Never Stop Dreaming – This month we’re sending a message of confidence and empowerment to all those in the world (near and far and maybe even you!) who have been told “You can’t”, “That’s not possible”, or “Not you”. Actually we can and we will! And we’ll never stop dreaming either :)
This month we are creating with positive affirmations and the idea of female empowerment in mind. While pondering a fun way to use Nat’s new Actually, I Can stamp set, I was reminded of all of the fun I had as a child playing with paper dolls. I would spend hours as a child daydreaming of parties with ladies wearing fancy clothes and shoes while changing the outfits on my paper ladies. This stamp set takes me right back to those days. I was inspired to create an encouragement card that plays on the idea of a paper doll.
I began by stamping the Millie stamp in the center of a 4 x 5.5 inch ivory card base with black archival ink.
Next, I brayered out a mixture of Dina Wakley Media Acrylic paint in cheddar and magenta onto my 5×7 gel plate. After placing Nat’s Buenos Aires stencil down onto the paint, I pressed my stamped card face on top of the stencil and pressed evenly across the surface.
I pulled up the stencil to find what is referred to as the “ghost print”. I laid a second card base down to pull that leftover paint off the plate.
Once the gelli print is dry, I colored in the image starting with the skin using a Posca Pen in light orange. Her hair, dress, and shoes were also colored in with various posca pen colors. You can really have a lot of fun with this step adding stripes, polka dots, etc. I finished off the front with the “Actually, I can” stamp in the upper left hand corner and a stamp from Nat’s Small Circle Jumble stamp set in the lower right corner.
I took a few extra card bases and cut them in half. Then I stamped the Millie image on the front of each one. Next, I fussy cut around the edges of her dress and colored them in with my Posca paint pens to create a few changes of clothes for Millie. Once dry, I placed scor-tape on the back of the dresses and added them to the insides of my two cards.
I took a Sakura Gelli Roll pen in black and drew a clothes hanger for Millie’s dress. Later, when I send it I will write in an inspirational quote for the recipient beside of her new fancy party dress.
I hope you have enjoyed my paper doll inspired cards. Be sure to check back each Tuesday to see more from Nat’s Creative Squad.
Thank you Jennifer! These are so fun and I know who ever receives them will love playing with Millie’s wardrobe :) You can find my new Millie and Actually I Can stamps, along with all my products, in my online shop. Jennifer also used some of the following supplies:
Feel inspired? Working on something yourself that you’d like to share? I love to see how you interpret our monthly themes. Email me how you used my stencils and stamps with the theme and email me an image – I would love to share your projects in my next “n*Spiration From Around the Globe“.
Today we have a post from my Creative Squad. Squad member Josefine Fouarge is sharing with us a fun art journal page that really shows off my new Millie rubber stamp, and my Hamburg and Lily Wallpaper stencils. Josefine was inspired by this month’s theme: Never Stop Dreaming – This month we’re sending a message of confidence and empowerment to all those in the world (near and far and maybe even you!) who have been told “You can’t”, “That’s not possible”, or “Not you”. Actually we can and we will! And we’ll never stop dreaming either :)
For me, creating is all about expressing myself and experiencing with new mediums, styles, etc. I love to sit down and come up with several ideas of how to use a specific stamp or stencil – sometimes I see a finished project, sometimes I just see the beginning – and then just start creating.
For this page, I decided to use Nathalie’s Hamburg and Lily Wallpaper stencil as well as the new Actually, I Can stamp set. I knew that my image would end up being rather long, so I grabbed my large Dina Wakley journal and primed one of the craft card stock pages.
I didn’t want to cover the entire page in paint, so I applied a very thin layer of white gesso to create a fog like coverage. This allowed the blue tones that I added on top to shine nicely.
To keep the page light, I added a few accents. I made these by mono printing different green and blue shades through the Hamburg stencil using a round Gel Press.
To clean up my Gel Press, I applied the leftover paint to the page, creating round shapes with the impressions from the stencil in them. To add a little more interest to the circles, I stenciled one lily from the Lily Wallpaper stencil into one of the circles.
I stamped one of the girls from the “Actually, I Can” stamps onto a piece of collage paper. This allowed me to adhere a crisp image of her to the page.
First, I adhered the hand with gel medium, then the girl. I overlapped them a little, so it looks like she’s standing on the hand.
Unfortunately, the collage paper didn’t merge with the background entirely, so I “fixed” it by applying a thin layer of gesso all around her.
This felt like an aura to me, so I decided to embrace that fact. I applied layers of yellow and orange all around her till it looked like she’s on fire. I also lightly colored her using Liquitex paint markers.
Now, she really felt magical to me. As a final touch, I added a few outlines around the hand and some finishing touches around her. She definitely can, no matter what anyone says :)
Everything came alive and played so well with each other – the elegant hand, the girl on fire – so it just needed a little sentiment, which btw, I interpret as something very positive.
It’s exciting to see all these layers melt into each other and shine through.
I hope you enjoyed my magical page with the girl that could and feel encouraged to let your dreaming girl out.
Thanks for stopping by and don’t forget to come back every Tuesday for more inspiration from the Creative Squad.
Thanks Josefine! Love how you layered the Hamburg and Lily Wallpaper stencils together! You can find my new Millie rubber stamp here in my online shop as well as all of my stencil designs. Here are some of the other products that Josefine used in her post:
Feel inspired? Working on something yourself that you’d like to share? I love to see how you interpret our monthly themes. Email me how you used my stencils and stamps with the theme and email me an image – I would love to share your projects in my next “n*Spiration From Around the Globe“.
Welcome to a post from my Creative Squad! Today we have a gorgeously layered art journal page from Tania Ahmed – showing off some of my rubber stamps including my new Actually I Can set and an oldie but a goodie – my Marks set. Tania was inspired by the new theme for this month: Never Stop Dreaming – This month we’re sending a message of confidence and empowerment to all those in the world (near and far and maybe even you!) who have been told “You can’t”, “That’s not possible”, or “Not you”. Actually we can and we will! And we’ll never stop dreaming either :)
It can be incredibly hard in today’s world with all its demands and expectations to make time to do what is right for ourselves and this is something that I personally struggle with. The theme this month for the Creative Squad was “Never Stop Dreaming” and to me this, coupled with working hard to achieve those dreams, has proved a powerful motivator for change.
I’ve had many conversations with people in my life and artists about what stops them from going for their dreams … there is fear of failure, disappointing others and the expectation that one must live a “conventional” life. I have lately discovered that the biggest motivator for me to go out and work hard to achieve my dreams is the consequences of not doing it! Life is too short for regrets, so I have learnt to do more of what makes me happy, look after myself and occasionally agree to do things that scare me or put me out of my comfort zone, haha!
I made an art journal page for my disc bound journal to celebrate and remind myself that yes, I can do anything I can dream of as long as I work hard for it and keep learning from the inevitable failures that come my way.
I hope you enjoy the video that I made using Nat’s stamps (I must confess I am in love with the Millie and Maiko stamps!) Please do let me know if you have any questions about the page that I made and I apologize for the strobing effect in my video which was caused by the craft mat. You might see me using Millie and Maiko in future projects as well :)
Thanks for popping by, and have a great day!
Thank you Tania for sharing with us – it’s always fun to see the process of a page coming together and to know the important ideas behind it :) To get your hands on my Millie stamp, just visit my online store. Here are some of the other supplies that Tania used today:
Feel inspired? Working on something yourself that you’d like to share? I love to see how you interpret our monthly themes. Email me how you used my stencils and stamps with the theme and email me an image – I would love to share your projects in my next “n*Spiration From Around the Globe“.
I love how this came out Josefine! I also like mixing magazine elements with other images/stamps…very fun page.
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